Thursday, November 06, 2008

After reaching a rapprochement with the West, which ended two decades of isolation, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi has explored the world outside, including the East.

Libya’s friendly relations with the USSR made Moscow the starting point of Gaddafi’s Eastern tour. The next leg of his tour took him to Kyiv, where he and President Yushchenko on Tuesday discussed trade, energy and defense.

Aside from the Bedouin tent in which Col. Gaddafi resides while on tour, the most interesting thing about him is the gender issue. Channel 1+1 takes an intimate look his security detail, staffed by female bodyguards.

Narrator: While the leader is sleeping, the bodyguards are carrying out their duties, and it's these women who do the fighting. When it comes to security, Gaddafi relies on ladies only. The head of the Libyan Jamahiriya has a total of 300-400 girls on his security detail. According to official accounts, all of them are virgins. Selection is done by Gaddafi himself. This whim has an explanation for it: In ancient times, they believed that the best guards were either virgins or lesbians, the underlying belief being that they could sense threats, the so-called wind of death. The girls were even sterilized to make them more aggressive toward men. There can be different views on these stories, but it was the girls with Kalashnikovs who saved Gaddafi's life a number of times. During the assassination, they shielded him from gunfire and grenades. One died, four others were wounded. The bodyguards are with Gaddafi day and night. Each of them can handle several strong men. According to some sources, most of the girls are Cuban.